Background Play: How to Listen to Videos With the Screen Off

Half the “videos” on a phone are really for listening: a podcast recorded on camera, a long talk, a devotional recording, a song with a static picture. Keeping the screen on for those wastes battery and makes your pocket warm. With background play, VideoPlayer keeps the sound going when you lock the phone or switch apps — and shows controls on the lock screen.

How to turn on background play

1. While a video plays, tap the controls and open ⋮ More.
2. Switch on Background play.
3. Lock the phone or go to another app — the audio carries on.

The headphones button in the quick bar under the title does the same thing in one tap, and you can set it permanently in Settings → Playback → Background play.

Controls while you’re away

• Lock screen: title, artwork, play/pause, previous/next and a seek bar.
• Notification shade: the same controls, from any app.
• Earphone buttons and Bluetooth controls work too — single press to pause, double to skip, depending on your earphones.
• Unplug earphones and playback pauses automatically, so the sound never blasts from the speaker by surprise.

Background play vs. picture in picture

Background play is for when you don’t need to see the video. If you want a small floating picture while you use another app, use picture in picture instead. With background play off, leaving the app pauses the video (or switches to PiP, if that’s on).

Make background play better

• Set a sleep timer for bedtime listening — 15 minutes to 90 minutes, or the end of the current video. See sleep timer.
• Turn on auto-play next (⋮ menu) to keep a folder of talks or episodes playing one after another.
• For actual songs, the Music tab lists every song on your phone and plays them the same way.
• Lift quiet speech with Dialogue Boost and Night Leveler — they work in the background too.

Background play stops by itself?

Some phone brands close background apps aggressively to save battery. If playback stops after a few minutes with the screen off:

• Open phone Settings → Apps → VideoPlayer → Battery and choose Unrestricted (or “Don’t optimise”).
• Don’t swipe VideoPlayer away from the recent apps list while listening.

Power and data with the screen off

The display is the biggest power user on any phone, so listening with the screen off lets a long talk or a playlist last far longer on one charge than watching does. A two-hour podcast might use a third of the charge with the screen on and only a small slice with it off.

Streams are different: the video keeps downloading even when you can’t see it, because the sound and picture travel together. On mobile data, pick a lower quality from ⋮ More → Video quality before you lock the phone, or save the audio as a file first with video to audio.

For music and podcasts you return to often, saving the audio once is usually the better deal than streaming it again and again.

The website Don’t kill my app has step-by-step instructions for each phone brand.

Frequently asked questions